South Africa: False narrative of xenophobic attacks SouthAfrica
The world has witnessed a spate of attacks on “foreign” workers in South Africa almost since the day after the end of apartheid in that country, in 1994. It has become particularly acute in the last few years as levels of unemployment and deprivation have reached new heights amidst allegations of corruption and “state capture” levelled against the former President, Jacob Zuma.
There is no hate blood flowing from the veins of one set of blacks onto another in South Africa. The root cause of the violent attacks lies in economic inequality, not xenophobia. South Africa’s economy grew by 1.3% in 2017, and a dismal 0.8% in 2018. Growth projection for 2019 is 1.3%, nudging up to 1.7% in 2020, according to the World Bank. Per capita growth has come to a screeching halt since 2014, leaving little or no room for poverty reduction in the wider sense.
This scale of mass economic deprivation could only be rationalised if examined through the prisms of apartheid, when the majority blacks were kept in bondage by the minority whites. The greatest achievement of the post-apartheid settlement, from the point of view of the whites, has been the preservation of the old structures of power in the hands of a tiny few, of which a significant number of blacks have now been invited to join.
Have you ever wondered why, despite the overwhelming presence of Nigerian bankers, professors, scientists, doctors, lawyers and other top business executives thriving in the same South African economy, there is no simultaneous uprising against them, and other white-collar “foreigners”? How many poor people even understand the word “xenophobia” anyway? The black elite roaming the corridors of power in South Africa clearly do not wish to amplify the message of economic inequality too loudly for...
In the final analysis, though when we live in a world that insists on “trickledown economics” as the only means of organising society, a majority of the citizens are bound to be kept at bay violently, it appears, as they wait for the fruits of the elusive economic growth to manifest in their communities.
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